Handbook of Radon.
42. Radon politics in the USA.
In the USA as in the UK, Government Departments have momentum. Respect for (or fear of) vested interests seems sometimes to preclude the intrusion of reason, especially when a subject cuts across cherished and well defended territories. There are few territories so jealously guarded as that of radiological protection. The author has attempted in the UK to bring some perspective to radon, and with some small success has helped to introduce life-years and health economics into North American debates.
Apportionment of funds in US programs is geared strongly to Press or Congressional interest, and the administrators who achieve the highest profile and exposure may get more of next years' budget. This is unexceptional, but radon is not the first subject where the EPA have proposed the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars only to have the rationale of their program questioned by eminent scientists.
Recently, EPA rulings on asbestos were overturned by an appeals court, and the National Research Council has suggested that billions of dollars may be being wasted on ill-thought-out environmental clean up programs. Papers at a recent meeting of the Society of Risk Analysis concluded bluntly that the billions of dollars spent in the 1980s on asbestos abatement in public buildings (including schools) could not be justified given the continuance of more serious problems of environment and public health.
The success of the EPA radon program in addressing the central issue of those houses that are so high in radon that they may be classed as dangerous may be judged from the fact that some radon mitigation companies will admit that were it not for the relocation industry (see Section 32) they would be out of business.
Notwithstanding publicity campaigns, the key issue of very high level houses remains substantially unaddressed nearly a decade after their discovery and over five years after scientists outside of EPA first promulgated proposals to effect a rational program of research and application in the United States.
Central to this international problem is that there are too few good scientists in politics, and advocates from the administration can all too easily gain acceptance for policies and programs that have more to do with empire building than good use of public resources.
Politicians should not escape censure either: they need to recognise the inadequacy of their own knowledge, and seek genuinely independent advice.
Financial problems of radon projects.
Across the United States there is a tightening of the availability of State funding for radon. This is especially so for schools, which are at the centre of a larger and acrimonious national debate over funding and educational standards.
Many local School Boards have enough financial problems without bothering about radon. Their views of EPA, at least in part, are coloured by experience with asbestos. In this area large sums of money have sometimes been expended in panic and haste. It is now increasingly recognised that the risks averted (notwithstanding the often higher asbestos levels in mitigated schools) were often much exaggerated especially in the media and amongst local 'activists'. But that is another story, and centred upon politics in Washington DC.
The inadequacy of perspective that seems often to accompany billion dollar bandwagons was summarized in a recent book review:
"the scientific community can deal very well with scams such as cold fusion where only millions of dollars are at risk, but [that] it collapses over big projects where billions or hundreds of billions of dollars are in question."